There is some risk but there's something like Expected Value in a bet. It's like summing all events and outcomes from it. The Fair Game has Expected Value at 0 meaning playing for a few years won't get you substantially reacher or poorer. The casino cash machines or Lotto bets has Expected Value under minus five cents meaning Lotto or Las Vegas would get statistically only reacher. The chance calculated depends on what we already know - knowing if dice result is odd or even has substantial effect of knowing if it would be ie. 6 or 1 and it's still worth mention if we bet on 1-3 range. Nokia indirectly claimed that expected value is more than 20$ per unit (so you mostly win by betting on nokia but it's not a certain win) while it was more like minus 30$ knowing what Elop would do (still about minus 5$ with decision already told). I aproximated these values which may not be real beacuse I don't know value of unit of nokia shares but it mostly desribes the reasoning.

The difference on "risk" and "uncertainty" spoken by person before is he mentioned risk is in Fair Game meaning expected value is at 0$ so you have same chances winning a 1$ as loosing 1$, while betting on company shares gives you plus a few to a few hundreds of dollars statistically on unit while there's not fully certain if it go as good or worse (you mostly get something like no lower than +1$ instead of calculated +5$, you can get even +100 dolars if you are lucky enough, but you have to be very unlucky to gain -5$ that mean loosing 5$).

The Expected Value is most important for bet game - this is why Lotto bets with milons or billions of people and is still winniing money (that mean they not only haven't bakrupted but also get constant gain). The most easy model of Expected Value is Weighted Mean of lose/win result with weight beeing probability of event, but if events are infinite or there are quadrilions possible events, more complicated models are used - if you want know about them, look somewhere else.

what for? From the perspective of someone who loved Nokia because of the open, powerful smartphones they build, for the innovation behind maemo... Why should I be interested in them to somehow "survive" while throwing all these assets into the bin? What good is a Nokia that sells just crap? If they really want to die, let them.

Oh don't get me wrong, I have no personal interest in Nokia. But as far as market competition goes, the more, the better. No other reason than that, really.

Originally Posted by s4br0s0

I sold you the idea (i'm good seller) and you buy it (you dont make the best choice), now that you see it wasn't the best choice, you are going against me?

If I buy it because of false advertisement from you, yes, I'll go against you.

Here the investors don't complain because the strategy was poor / poorly executed, they complain because they believe that nokia had research indicating how poor it was, but told the investors otherwise.

And the risk of the company lying to you is not part of the risks the investor is supposed to take.

If my memory serves me right, I remember Elop telling in some interview in the summer of 2011, that even if WP7 would flop, WP8 then would be in par with the competitors hardware. But if Elop has told investors then that WP7 will save Nokia already and Nokia sees no big risks in WP7, then the lawsuit has merits.

Nokia has known since 2010 that WP7 has restrictions, which make it incompatible with modern SoC. If Nokia hasn't told this openly, it may be a bad thing, depending what court in time will say.

If I were a NOKIA shareholder at the moment Elop announced he was killing the best selling smartphone OS on the planet in order to replace it with the worst selling one, especially knowing he was a major shareholder in the company who had produced that failed OS - would I believe he was defrauding me?

Would that belief be compounded if the OS in question had already proven to be a failure for at least three other big manufacturers?

The iPhone had been in the market since 2007 and even in Q4 2010, in terms of units, Symbian was still outselling it by an very large margin.
Samsung were making some very nice Android handsets yet, in terms of units, Symbian was still outselling them by an very large margin too.
On top of that sales in Symbian devices were still increasing and so were their margins.

So, if despite all the evidence to the contrary Elop publicly announced Symbian was a burning platform and he would be replacing it with an OS from his former employer (you know - the one he was a major shareholder of) that was already a proven failure would I have to question his motives?

If I knew that, in terms of revenue, Ovi was bigger than Android Marketplace and in most places outside of North America it was bigger than Apple's app store too and I knew NOKIA had other great offerings like NOKIA maps would I smell a rat when he tried to justify this move by suggesting we needed outside help with our 'ecosystem'?

When I discovered his former employer (you know - the one he was a major shareholder of) was getting control of the app store to cater for all the smartphones we made and our own app store would be sidelined would I be justified in thinking I was getting shafted?

Would I feel far from gaining an 'ecosystem' that it was being taken away from us, complete with our maps, and presented to his former employer (you know - the one he was a major shareholder of)?

If I knew China Mobile, a carrier bigger than all US carriers combined, had publicly expressed support for an advanced open source OS we were working on and were part of the working group helping to develop that OS would I be mortified that Elop announced he was killing that too. Would I view Elop ticking off a very important ally as a beneficial decision for me or just a way of eliminating another competitor to the failed OS from his former employer (did I mention he was a major shareholder?)?

If I knew his former employer (you know...) viewed open source as a 'cancer' might I feel this was an act of sabotage?

If the one device we produced that ran that OS then proved to be hugely desirable but Elop deliberately hamstrung its success by restricting it's markets who would I believe he was working for? For me?

If I then discovered he had transferred thousands of our valuable patents into a third party company and his former employer (...) was going to get a significant cut of our licensing fees even though they had made absolutely no contribution whatsoever in developing the technology could I possibly believe he was acting in my best interest?

I genuinely believe this case has mileage so long as they cite the right evidence, at this moment they seem to be focussing on things he said in Q4 2011 which I think is small potatoes.

Imo the things Elop's done that have damaged NOKIA so badly are not due to incompetence, they have been deliberate decisions made to benefit M$, if that's the case I'd say he clearly has defrauded NOKIA's shareholders.

Just as an aside listen to him speak and see for yourself if he talks about making NOKIA a success or making Windows Phone a success.